Methods for transport of toner material from a reservoir are known from German patent applications DE 102 23 231 and DE 102 23 232. Toner material is transported from a reservoir with the aid of a toner transport system of a printer or copier. A printer or copier system as well as a method in which consumable substances (in particular toner material) applied to the printer or copier with the aid of transport reservoirs (for example with the aid of toner bottles) is also known from DE 198 44 435. Such a transport reservoir contains an information medium for contact-less transfer of data and energy from a data read or write station, whereby a transponder system is proposed as an information medium.
Furthermore, a printer or copier with a plurality of modularly-arranged, exchangeable part aggregates is known from DE 197 12 798, whereby the part aggregate to be identified comprises an identification arrangement with a non-volatile memory for storage of operating data of the part aggregate associated with function-relevant operating states as well as a communication interface for detachable coupling of the identification arrangement with a process control arrangement of the printer or copier.
An image generation device with a toner refilling device is known from DE 198 00 930 C2, which toner refilling device comprises a plurality of toner reservoirs from which the toner material is extracted little by little to fill a development device of the image generation device. The toner quantity extracted from each reservoir is separately detected for each reservoir.
An image generation device is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,329,340 A that has two toner reservoirs, of which a first toner reservoir is arranged in a housing of the image generation device and a second toner reservoir is arranged in a separate housing. The second toner reservoir is connected with the image generation device via hoses. The second toner reservoir is used for refilling of the first toner reservoir.
A device for precise determination of the quantity of particulate material extracted from a reservoir, via which device the quantity of the material remaining in the reservoir is correctly determined, is known from U.S. 6,526,236 B1. The quantity of the particle reserve present in the reservoir is continuously determined with aid of a control unit.
A printer or copier system in which the quantity of toner material extracted from reservoirs is monitored specific to the reservoir is known from WO 00/19278. Material-specific information of the toner material contained in the reservoir is also associated with each reservoir, which material-specific information is used for control of the printing process. From this document it is also known to use a transponder as an information medium.
In general, in known printers or copiers it cannot be differentiated whether the reservoir is empty or whether an error of the toner transport system of the printer or copier is present when toner material is no longer conveyed from the reservoir. If the printer or copier detects that no toner material is transported from the reservoir, it marks the reservoir as empty in since information about the fill state “empty” of the reservoir is written on an information medium that is associated with the reservoir. Such an information medium can, for example, be contained in a transponder unit. The transponder unit is thus permanently connected with the reservoir, for example with a toner bottle. After the writing of this fill state information “empty, the reservoir can no longer be used even when toner material is actually still present in the reservoir. A reservoir is thus also marked as empty when problems occur in the toner transport in the toner transport system that prevent a toner transport from the reservoir, and the reservoir is marked as empty in spite of a sufficient reserve of toner material.